Hello everyone,
and welcome to our German Word of the Day. And today we’ll take a look at the meaning of
spalten
And man… what a sound! And maybe that’ just me, but it matches really well with what it stands for. Spalten!
Like… a chasm opening up during an earthquake. Or a bolt of lightning smashing into a tree.
Well okay, I guess technically those would sound more like “cshrrrkh”. But at least to me, spalten fits well, too. And this notion of forcefully splitting in two is kind of the core of spalten. And not only that verb.
It actually was also the core of the ridiculously ancient Indo-European root *(s)pel-.
You’ll be surprised how many words actually come from that root, but more on that later.
Let’s start with spalten itself….
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Spall is also an English word, but not widely used. It means to crack or flake, but I only ever hear it in the context of concrete. It’s almost exclusively a construction-related word. Ex: They poured the new parking lot, but the concrete is already spalling and will have to be fixed.
Wow, English has sooo many words you never get to hear :)
Here’s two more English derivatives of spalten, having to do with wood:
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/spalt
https://www.lexico.com/en/definition/spalted
And beautiful spalted wood!
https://www.google.com/search?q=spalting&tbm=isch
Great, danke :)!!
Ich liebe diese alte Woerte mit interesanten Geschichte!
Du hast gefragt uber was idiomatisch ist fuer eine Persone die eine Gruppe spaltet. Ich habe kein richtige Antwort, aber ich habe mich an einem sehr komischen Teil aus dem Film Life of Brian (Monty Python) erinnert, worin Leute in dem Judean People’s Front nutzt den Begriff “splitter” einen Mitglied dem People’s Front of Judea zu (insult/disparage??). Wenn du Zeit hast, guck mal! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iS-0Az7dgRY
Puh, dieser Akzent ist echt schwer für mich zu verstehen :). Aber ich habe “Splitter” gehört.
oh tut mir Leid!
Ich bitte dich, da muss dir nichts leid tun :)
(“ich bitte dich” ist die Deutsche Version von “Oh please…”)
Wie für das Einführungsthema (Greta T.), der Text auf spiked-online.com – Save Greta – verkündete, was sie erwarten konnte, und wenn sie sich nicht zurückzog, würden die Medienangriffe immer schlimmer werden. Das Hauptmerkmal der heutigen Faschisten ist, dass sie andere Faschisten proklamieren.
Kannst du das nochmal auf Englisch schreiben?
Ich habe alles verstanden, und es war ziemlich gut, aber ich bin mir nicht sicher, wo du welche Zeit benutzen wolltest. Die Formen sind alle richtig, aber irgendwas ist komisch, aber ich kann nicht korrigieren, ohne zu wissen, was du im Kopf hattest.
Nur eine Sache… man sagt “proklamieren als X”
Entschuldigung. Mein Deutsch ist zu schlecht für diese Arte von Diskussionen:)
Couple of weeks ago I heard cnn reporter asking British conservative MP: “Why do you use democratic means to obstruct democracy, like in Hungary for example?” (Not to mention Serbia and other small forgotten “democracies”) When we have in mind that Snowden claimed in one of his recent interviews that modern tech is abused in order to narrow human rights and bring extreme right politicians to power. And last but not least, when we remember that Umberto Eco said that new form of fascism will not resemble old ones in concrete manifestations, rather in some common characteristics (attitude towards medias, individuals who think differently, etc) We can see that fascist are already in power in many countries and that their modus operandi is to proclaim that the others, who don’t think like they do, are fascist, thus turn public opinion against them. With so much media power, everyone can be satanized….even saints. The fact that half of your acquaintances agree with this anti-Greta attitude, goes in favor of this thesis.
Ha… what I actually meant was if you could write your German statement again in English, so I can correct the German better :). The discussion itself is interesting, no doubt, but I was focused on the language aspect :).
As for fascism… I don’t think it’s good to throw words around that easily. Someone says “green fascism”. Then you come and say “You’re fascist and you’re projecting.”
Then they’re saying “No, you’re even more fascister than me.”
It leads nowhere and helps noone. We should all stick to arguments rather than labelling :)
Haha…
I agree with you. Too much using that word makes it losing the true meaning.
But there is one thing that can help us to understand is it just about labeling or not.
If in medias or general in public exists self-sensorship (in core of which is fear), then the situation is already very serious.
Next time, just linguistic comments:)
Best regards!
For spooling a cassette tape forward the phrase was “fast forward” (or “ffwd>>|”). Your vikings wanting an axe to cleave a bill in two made me think of this fairly amusing sketch from Harry Enfield and Chums where some ropy super heroes use their powers to tidy away a breakfast table. “Behold! The table has been split in twain!”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xyYrQZ50hQk
That clip in turn made me think of the ending of a Japanese superhero comedy/society drama called “Der große Japaner”.
It’s about aging in a society and … well … superheros. And the ending of the movie is extremely random and Japanese.
I think you might actually like it.
IT’s on ARTE till end of September, maybe you can watch it in the UK
https://www.arte.tv/de/videos/089394-000-A/der-grosse-japaner/
I’m not sure we have a good word for Spalter in the sense of group divider. In that context, one might just say “Don’t be lame.” The old school version might be “Don’t be such a party pooper.”
I just saw Elsa’s suggestions about spoilsport and killjoy, those are great too.
Along those lines, “Don’t be so divisive.”
I like that one. I feel like that’s closest to what the German version expresses.
While we’re at it… German also has the word “der Spaltpilz”. It’s not very common, just that I personally like it for some reason. Spaltpilz (spalting mushroom) can be an issue that slowly tears a group apart, for example.
In English we also have the word “spool”, meaning something onto which something is wound – eg a spool of film, tape or cotton.
It’s also the verb for winding and unwinding stuff onto or off of said spool.
Hiya,
So, how did your stay in Canada go? Hope you liked it (assuming you’re back in Berlin now…)
Typos:
“earth quake” is just one word
“die Spalte because s also” (it is also)
“don’t be such a splitter” is not idiomatic and it makes little sense, I’d use “don’t be such a spoilsport/killjoy”, although there are many other idioms…
“forcefully separation” (forceful separation)
“whether split was actually related. Well… it does” (well… it is)
and maybe “spliss” exists in English but I’ve never heard it or seen it written anywhere… I looked it up and nothing appears, although there’s a German video teaching you how to get rid of split ends without cutting your hair that I wish I could understand :)
One question, what does the verb “spulen” mean on its own (if it exists)?
Bis bald!
Thanks for the corrections, as usual :).
I’m actually still in Canada, Montreal to be precise but I’ll fly back on Monday. Looking forward to the Berlin rainy fall (actually, I kind of really am).
Good question about “spulen”. The first thing that came to mind was just a generic “winding” in the sense of forwarding or rewinding a tape.
Like… a walkman could “spulen” really fast.
But it’s rarely seen without a prefix!
Oh, post the link to the video… maybe I can just tell you what the hack is. Usually 90% of these vids are filler.
Yep, I know 90% of videos like that (if not more) are useless (or try to sell you useless stuff), but I keep hoping to find some of the 10% that actually give you good advice. Anyway, after watching the video I realised 2 things:
1) I actually understood most of it or at least the gist of it :)
2) The scissors the girl showed were deceptive. I thought it was about avoiding them, but nooooo – it was about how to use them to cut your split ends yourself (so no, I don’t wanna do that, but thanks for your kind offer!)
Hahahaha… “How do treat your split ends without scissors…. operated by someone else”
Splitter is a word but it’s not much used these days and it is more to do with political factions than party poopers.
But in a political context “So and so is a splitter” might occur?
Not in that form. Perhaps as “Representative Weiss’s rhetoric has split the Dummkopf Party down the middle on the issue of tariffs.”
I first learned this word from Monty Python’s Life of Brian – in the scene about the people’s front of Judea/Judean people’s front. I always assumed it was British English because of that. But maybe it’s not used commonly in British or American these days…
They start yelling about “splitters” around 1:10. OMG, I haven’t seen this movie in so long. I used to watch it on repeat.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WboggjN_G-4
Ah, yeah, that’s EXACTLY how German uses “Spalter”.
Splitter.= Shrapnel. bomb fragment
By itself, the word is usually understood as wood. But you can compound it, of course… Granatsplitter, Splitterbombe….
sports fans know a splitter to be a type of pitch in baseball. It’s a fastball thrown with a split-finger grip which causes the ball to dive violently at the last second. That’s why if you look at word usage over time for splitter, there’s a dramatic spike around the 1940s when baseball became popular in America. The drop in word usage at the end of the 90s corresponds to the pitch losing popularity. Only a dozen or so pitchers still throw it these days